Last week, I received a copy of "Marvel Visionaries: Steve Ditko".
To my great surprise, there is very little bio information.
Do we know if if Ditko ever married, or is he a lifelong bachelor?
You need to be a member of Captain Comics to add comments!
Replies
Wikipedia references Will Eisner as stating that Ditko has a son. That appears to the be the extent of Wikipedia's personal info on Ditko. Blake Bell did an artist's biography of Ditko a while back, which I skimmed, but I don't recall whether or not Ditko's marital status ever came up.
The NY Post did an article on him this summer and said he never married or had kids. http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/the_secret_hero_of_spider_man.... So we can believe Eisner via Wikipedia or the Post.
The article's main point is that he never got credit for creating Spider-Man, but I think most comics fans know of his role, and movie fans know there was someone besides Stan involved. Obviously, Stan Lee is better known, but I think Ditkodoes pretty well in terms of credit these days, at least, considering he wants nothing to do with letting anyone know his role.
-- MSA
I've never understood that reasoning.
Why doesn't he want anyone to know, or any publicity?
Ditko is a unique individual. I have a DVD called The Masters of Comic Book Art (you can watch it here) featuing an interview with Ditko. He never shows his face, and he really doesn't talk that much about his work. I think his reluctance to accept accolades has a lot to do with his personal philosophy.
Kirk G said:
I dunno. In those independently published books that he brought out in the 90s Ditko does talk about his time with Marvel, and what 'creating' a character means, in some depth. It's clear that he's deeply upset that he isn't credited properly and officially as co-creator of Spider-man.
His refusal to discuss it or accept 'crumbs from the table' that Marvel try to give him is a result of that, I think (combined with his unique objectivist philosophy). He is certainly disgusted with how Marvel treated him.
Note that practically his only interaction with Stan in recent years was for Stan to send him a letter acknowledging that Ditko co-created Spider-man. Stan did so, but was rather meally-mouthed in affirming the situation in Jonathan Ross' fine Ditko documentary.
Steve Bissette goes into detail about Ditko's relationship to Marvel and his Spider-man work in his column, but I can't find the relevant sections right now. The important thing was that there is a lot of stuff out there that Ditko put out regarding his time at Marvel, that fandom just ignores. Perhaps because it is only available in limited print form rather than all over the internet.
It really should be collected and preserved, and made more widely available.
(The particular Bissette post I link to does have a reference of sorts to Ditko's private life and a lead to finding out more about it.)
BTW - all Bissette's Ditko posts here.
Steve Ditko has written several Spider-Man essays. He explains that he was brought in to reinterpret Lee's idea